First official TV Broadcast in South Africa in 1976 - Eerste SAUK TV-Uitsending in 1976 

I cannot believe we had to wait until 1976 before we were finally 'allowed' to view TV. Thank you for this upload that brings back loads of memories!

I'm afrikaans speaking. I would like to point out to English speaking visitors that the style of Afrikaans the presenter is using is VERY formal and not the kind of Afrikaans one would normally use in everyday conversation. It was fun to see the old logos again. It is also good to know that these tapes have been preserved.

I'm Afrikaans-speaking and Heinrich Marnitz is definately speaking Afrikaans.

Just days before my 9th birthday! I remember our family's first set, a 23-inch Grundig colour unit we bought at Greatermans (if memory serves) in Cape Town. I remember those brief test transmissions and have vague recollections of watching a clip of the German pop show "Musik Laden" through a shop window one afternoon.

Thanks for this incredible archive footage of this inaugural, history making broadcast.

Dorianne Berry went on to co-present eighties evening magazine show 'Prime Time' and later on 'Good Morning South Africa'

Do you perhaps have a longer piece to upload? I'm also interested in the fact that it was colour. I suppose we just associate it with black and white because most of us had black and white TVs back then. Very interesting upload thank you, and I love this formal Afrikaans. It is such a picturesque language to listen to when spoken beautifully.

Actually the first advert was for hamburger patties. the brand slips my mind right now but it had cowboys riding full speed into a fort riding on a wagon.

5 January 1976 Experimental broadcasts in the main cities began on 5 May 1975

Over in Blighty, the first colour broadcast was Wimbledon in 1967 and full colour came in by 1969. It took until 1976 before more colour tv's were being sold than black and white.

@orlando318 Entirely for political reasons. Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) got TV fifteen years before, but didn't get colour until the 1980s. Malawi didn't get its own TV service until the 1990s,

@1prouddemocrat That's right - in 1969, the commission of inquiry said that in the future, people would be able to pick up TV via satellite, so it made sense for South Africa to pre-empt that by bringing in its own TV service.

Thanks for confirming the date telly started in SA

Test transmissions started well before this. One could see TV in SA about a year earlier.

Interesting though the title says 1976 the guy says 1975 in Afrikaans. Which is it? Did he make a mistake?

@shmuli9 in Indonesia started in 17 August 1962, the day of our independence and the Asian Games opening, and became coloured since October 1979. just for adding info :)

Colour was introduced way before this, we got TV really late when it was already in colour overseas.... People still bought black and white TVs as it was cheaper though.....

The lack of television in South Africa until 1976 was disseminated widely in the rest of the world. (The British had broadcast TV in the 1930s, the Americans in 1946, and most of the rest of the world by the early 1960s.)

I'm amazed that South Africa didn't have TV till 1976 - that is very late for an industrialized country. The USA had very crude, very localized broadcasting by the late 1920s but television really didn't start to become common till the late 1940s, but only in big cities. It wasn't till 1952 that it was able to spread to less populated areas.

At least in the US, the transition from black and white to colored happened in the 1960s. By the 1970s, it was pretty much all color.

Is there a place where I can download this video?

Looks a bit like the London Weekend logo!

Was it really in color even back then? I somehow though it was black and white, hummm cool learn new things every day :)

@breizhcatalonia1993: Yes, you're welcome to do so.

can i upload this?

Die vraag is... Waar is Henrich Marnitz?

@kmfw72 I thought that too.

what? they didnt have television til 1976?

1975 or 1976?

@shmuli9 Spain in 1956

Heinrich rugbymal-bal!

Does he not sound like he's speaking Dutch and not Afrikaans..??

@nevilleprinsloo: Jammer!

BIg T Hamburger Patties

baie baie sag!

The logo looks like a toilet - a foreshadowing of current tv-fare